


What He Regretted, And What Not

by kaqeritsu_s



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Forest Spirit Konoha Akinori, Forest Spirits, Forests, I Will Go Down With This Ship, I'm Sorry, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Rare Pairings, forest spirit, this is from the deepest darkest pits of rarepair hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:28:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24335125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaqeritsu_s/pseuds/kaqeritsu_s
Summary: Akinori knew that he should probably regret it all by the end of it, but he didn't.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime & Konoha Akinori, Iwaizumi Hajime & Oikawa Tooru, Konoha Akinori & Oikawa Tooru, Konoha Akinori/Oikawa Tooru
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	What He Regretted, And What Not

**Author's Note:**

> tHANKS TO @LaraDarkness FOR INTRODUCING ME TO THIS RAREPAIR LKSDVRIAO I LOVE IT V V V MUCH a;lsdkvnraoei

Oikawa Tooru and Iwaizumi Hajime often went to the forest as kids; it wasn't that far away from their homes after all. They played around there for hours on end, never getting tired of the outdoors. Hajime often went around, looking for interesting bugs and so on, while Tooru just enjoyed looking around or practicing his volleyball skills with a ball he’d gotten for his birthday once. Despite not really bothering to actually hang out with the other, or really paying the other any mind, in Hajime’s case, they still made sure to go in and out of the forest with the other male, no matter what. There had been several times where Hajime had sprained his ankle, or somehow both, and it was always Tooru who made sure to take care of him, and that they both had bandages in case they got ‘severely wounded.’ They never actually ended up severely wounded, but Hajime would be lying if he said that the bandages, paired with his best friend, didn’t reassure him. The forest was quiet as a forest in the spring can be, even with baby animals hidden all around, and Tooru was pretty sure Hajime wouldn’t call out to him for a while. So, Tooru decided to walk a bit further away, but not too far - he was actually quite afraid of getting lost in the forest, not that he’d ever admit that – and ended up at a small creek where the water calmly made its way through the forest. There were a couple of flat rocks, and from what the young brunette could see, they weren’t slippery. Like any other kid would in his situation; Tooru hopped onto one of the flat rocks, landing safely and smiling at the fact that the rocks weren’t slippery, just like he had thought. He then continued onto the second one and admired the forest’s beauty from there for a few calm seconds, then headed onto the next rock.  
Now, there had always been a single thing that tended to bother Oikawa on the worst possible moments, and of course it had decided to waltz in when he landed on the last rock that was in the creek. The rock wasn’t slippery, the wind didn’t pick up, nothing pushed him, and yet Tooru lost his balance. Tooru knew why he had lost his balance, he hated the reason; the reason being his knee. His right knee had always been a bit weaker than his left one, and just because of that, he was going to fall, hit his head, pass out, and probably not be found by Hajime until way later.  
Except, he didn’t meet with the water, one of the rocks, or any surface for that matter. He hadn’t realized he had closed his eyes while falling, it was probably out of instinct, and right before he opened them he noticed two things; he was not standing upright, but he wasn’t on the floor either, so something had caught him mid-air, and that something felt like a pair of arms. When he opened his eyes he’d expected Hajime, or maybe an adult that had passed by, to have caught him, what he didn’t expect was to look into a pair of eyes he hadn’t seen before, he couldn’t quite pinpoint the color either. Before Tooru could actually react, he was placed back onto the forest ground. Now, he could really take a good look at his savior; they seemed to be a male, but Tooru wasn’t going to assume anything, had blonde hair, and oddly enough; also sported an extra pair of blonde fox ears on top of their head, paired with a couple of similarly colored tails. After thinking about whether or not he’d actually hit his head on something and was now imagining things, Tooru pinched his arm to see if what, or rather who, he was seeing was actually real and not a figment of his imagination. When Tooru realized that he’d just been staring at the stranger for a solid few seconds he managed to get out a ‘Thank you! For catching me,’ the stranger just nodded with a reassuring smile, though he hadn’t said anything to the young brunette. “Uhm, are you – or.. those – real?” Tooru asked, vaguely gesturing to the blonde’s extra pair of ears and tails. The other nodded again, but let their voice come out this time around. “Yeah, they are. Y’see, I’m what you humans call a ‘spirit of the forest,’” At that, Tooru’s mouth formed a little ‘o.’ “Do you have a name?” The blonde then asked, squatting down so he was more on eyelevel with Tooru. He answered truthfully and then directed the question back at the forest spirit, who answered with ‘Akinori, nice to meet you.’

They couldn’t really engage in any more conversation because the sound of Hajime’s footsteps drew near, and before Tooru knew it, Akinori had vanished. When Tooru told Hajime about the spirit, his friend plainly asked if he had hit his head or something of the sort; ‘cause even if spirits existed, you couldn’t see them, could you?  
  
The following days, Tooru went back to the spot where he had first seen Akinori, in attempts to see him again. He was sure that the forest spirit was real and that he wasn’t a figment of his imagination; he couldn’t have been, because then who had caught him when his knee failed him? Hajime had told him he had probably actually hit his head and just imagined everything, but Tooru insisted on the spirit really existing.

One day, while Tooru was once again at the spot by the creek, he had just been practicing his volleyball skills on his own when one of his receives flopped horribly, and sent the ball straight into the bushes. Tooru, logically, went after the ball, but when he couldn’t find it, his previously neutral face turned into one of disappointment and light sadness. He turned around and started heading off to where he knew Hajime would be, but he didn’t get to Hajime because he stopped dead in his tracks when a voice called out to him, “Hey, were you looking for this?” Lo and behold, it was the spirit Tooru had been trying to find for a while. He nodded in confirmation and smiled happily when he got the ball back. They talked for a bit longer, Tooru trying to practice while doing so, and before they knew it, the sun was starting to go down and Hajime was coming to fetch Tooru again. Before Tooru could turn around and quickly ask Akinori where he had gone off to, and if they’d see each other again, the blonde had once again vanished.

It went on like this for days, then days became weeks, weeks became months, and eventually, the months became years. Tooru would see Akinori, hang out for a while, and then be unable to find him as soon as Hajime would come up. After another hopeless attempt of trying to get Akinori to stay when Hajime came to get the brunette, Tooru decided that he would go to the forest alone and see if he could talk to Akinori without Hajime showing up. He was determined, because even after all those years of insisting to Hajime that the blonde forest spirit was real, Hajime still seemed wary of the idea of a forest spirit being real. But Tooru wouldn’t keep up a prank for years, would he?

So, Tooru messaged Hajime and said he wanted to go into the forest alone that day so he could talk Akinori into showing himself to Hajime as well, now of course Hajime would have sniffed out any lies Tooru sent him, so why not send him the truth which he still didn’t seem to believe? Hajime messaged him an ‘okay’ back and didn’t question anything.

When Tooru walked into the forest, a happy feeling washed over him, but that happened every time he entered the forest, which probably had to do with how much time of his life he had spent in that particular forest, and the thousands of memories he had created there. He went on and looked around for Akinori, over the years he’d learnt that the blonde wasn’t stuck in one spot of the forest, but after a while of not finding him, even after calling out for the spirit, Tooru decided that drastic measures had to be taken. Now he thought about it again, the plan wasn’t really drastic, but he went with it anyways. Tooru walked back to the creek where he’d first encountered the blonde, since then, his knee had improved, yeah, but it hadn’t completely healed and basically all of Tooru’s family doubted that it would ever completely heal. Hajime had once muttered something about going to fix his knee when he’d finished studying, but that could have always been Tooru’s ‘vivid imagination,’ but that was also brought up when the brunette talked about Akinori or aliens, and both of those things were real, so maybe Hajime was really going to fix his knee in the future. It was a very interesting thing to think about, so interesting to Tooru that he had almost fallen into the small creek due to his mind being occupied and his eyes not being focused on where he was walking, if not for the fact that Tooru was snapped out of his thoughts because he felt a hand take a hold of his wrist and pull him back away from the creek. The brunette’s original plan had been to fake fall into the creek and hope Akinori would pop up, but actually nearly falling into the creek seemed to work as well. Tooru quickly thanked Akinori, who, after years, was now shorter than the brunette - only five and a half centimeter, which wasn’t _that_ much – and proceeded to slowly make their conversation topic shift into what he needed it to be. At last they got there, and when Tooru finally asked the other if he would be okay with not disappearing when Hajime showed up, for at least one time so that Tooru could prove to Hajime that he wasn’t keeping up some stupid joke for years. And, much to Tooru’s genuine surprise, Akinori told him it was alright. After asking why, the brunette learnt that, because throughout the many years they had known each other, Tooru had never really shut up about Hajime, his very best friend. So, taking all the information about Hajime he had gotten in, Akinori had decided that meeting Hajime would be harmless and completely okay, the guy had been putting up with Tooru for years after all, it must be a good guy. So, when he had voiced his confirmation, Tooru beamed and embraced the spirit, thanking him several times before claiming that he would not regret it in the slightest because ‘Hajime is such a great friend, he’d never do something bad or disrespectful, at the very least not on purpose; he can be a little dense sometimes,’ and all Akinori could do was stare at the brunette who just kept on rambling on in his arms.

That evening, as it started to get darker, Tooru said his goodbyes to Akinori and left for home, but before that he would go to Hajime’s house and tell him that he could _finally_ meet Akinori; the forest spirit that Tooru had been talking about for years. And while Hajime was still skeptic about the existence of the ‘blonde beauty with tails and ears,’ as Tooru had called him, but he knew better than to say no to the brunette, who would probably drag him along by force if he denied the request.

So, the very next day when they walked into forest, Tooru was basically vibrating from excitement. It didn’t take long for the two of them to get to the spot where Tooru and Akinori had agreed to meet up. At first it looked like the blonde had bailed on them, and Tooru was a slight bit worried that his friend had gotten scared or socially anxious about meeting Hajime, but those doubts were quickly thrown out the window when the blonde appeared from behind a tree, it looked a little cliché, yeah, but Akinori had explained that if he were to just appear in an open clearing he could either scare a person or scare an animal, and he didn’t want to do either of those things. So, finally, Hajime and Akinori met. Hajime, who was still skeptic, made sure to ask the blonde several questions such as: ‘Are your ears and tails real? For how long have you known Tooru? How did you two meet? Why did you even appear before him, out of everyone who has entered this forest?’ and various things alike. After Akinori had managed to answer all of the questions truthfully, Hajime let out a small huff and turned to his best friend, placing a firm hand on his shoulder. “So you really didn’t hit your head back then, eh? Sorry for not believing you, not that you could actually blame me.”

From then on, Akinori didn’t disappear whenever Hajime tagged along, the two of them even became friends after a while, which Tooru was _very_ happy about, because who wouldn’t want their two best friends to become friends? Though Hajime didn’t tag along every time Tooru went to the forest, which allowed the brunette and the blonde to spend some quality time together. Over the course of time, they got closer and closer to the other, but they never really got.. _close_. And while Tooru didn’t really mind it in the beginning, it started to bother him a little as time went by. He didn’t ask about it, not out of fear or something, but because deep down, he knew why they never got _close_. And even though he never voiced his thoughts to Akinori, he was sure that the blonde noticed it all as well, that he was aware of it all just like he was. Tooru couldn’t exactly pinpoint what the reason was, even though it laid on the tip of his tongue.

For years on end, neither of them ever brought it up, until Tooru was in his mid-twenties. It wasn’t Tooru who had mentioned it, it was Akinori. “You know it very well, don’t you?” It seemed like a normal question, but it wasn’t; nothing about their current situation made the question seem even a little normal. They hadn’t been in a deep conversation that would make the question appear neutral, instead, they had been sitting in silence, just enjoying each other’s company while letting their feet soak in one of the several creeks that were situated in the forest. Tooru had nodded and hummed in confirmation; though he still couldn’t put it into words, he knew, he was conscious and aware of it. The two of them couldn’t be _close_ , couldn’t be _together_ , because Tooru was a _mortal_ being, and Akinori wasn’t. But even after that short conversation, they still hung out at least once a week, Tooru made time for the blonde, no matter what the situation was, and Akinori appreciated it a lot, but knew that with every passing second, their final goodbye would get harder and harder, the two of them had already strayed too long together, the road back a long way behind them, hidden by the memories they made. Neither of them really regretted it, at least not at the moment, because their final goodbye was still far away.

For many years, Tooru managed to visit Akinori, though the time in between visits sometimes ended up a bit longer, he still managed to visit. Hajime didn’t really tag along anymore after a while, though he did occasionally tell Tooru to say hi to the blonde for him, which would often be returned with wishes for him to stay healthy and safe. At one point, Tooru knew that he couldn’t keep coming to the forest for very long anymore; in not too many years he was pretty sure he’d be unable to walk, even though Hajime did manage to fix his knee quite a good amount of years back. Akinori knew it as well; having spent a lot of time with Tooru in the forest got him to be very capable of reading the brunette, but right now, the brunette had an expression he couldn’t pinpoint; he couldn’t describe it, he hadn’t seen it before on him. The word closest to what emotion Tooru’s face expressed was bittersweet, or maybe it wasn’t one word. Bittersweet, but also grieving and happy at the same time, angry, probably at the time running out, and fond, oh so very fond. All those things in a singular expression; it almost seemed unreal, and maybe it was. Maybe Akinori was just imagining it, but deep down, he didn’t believe that he was just imagining it. It was real, it was painful.

One evening, the usual ‘See you, Aki,’ the blonde heard wasn’t said, instead, something else had been sad, but Akinori’s ears had blocked it out; he didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want to face reality, but he already knew what had been said, he had known for years what Tooru would say, he just didn’t know _when_ the words would leave the other’s mouth.

Maybe they shouldn’t have embraced before Tooru left, maybe they should have stopped meeting up a while ago, to soften the blow that would come with never seeing the other again, maybe they shouldn’t have kept on meeting up, maybe Akinori should have never caught Tooru when he almost fell in the creek. Maybe he should have never paid him any mind, but he didn’t regret what he had done, and what he didn’t.

The days, months, weeks, years after their final goodbye, Akinori was alone. There were no other forest spirits such as him in the forest, but he never told Tooru that. He had never told Tooru that if he were to leave, he’d be back at his starting point again; completely alone, aside from the forest life. But this time around, something was different. This time he wasn’t just alone, he also _felt_ alone. He had finally known what it was like to have company, a friend, a best friend, someone he could trust in and talk to, someone he loved. But that was all gone, he couldn’t change that, no matter how much he wanted to. He wasn’t some kind of magic user, no, he was a spirit that belonged to the forest, he had no sort of ability or spell to reverse it all. But he could wish, hope, pray to whatever ruled over the universe, that he would get a second chance, of sorts. And Akinori was willing to wait as long as it took for that wish to come true, he would wait until the very day he, as a spirit, would cease to exist. He didn’t know how long it would take for himself to stop existing, to simply cease to be, and if his wish would never be fulfilled, he hoped that that day would come sooner rather than later.

But weeks passed, months, years, yet he was still in the forest, all alone. It was his own fault for getting attached to a mortal, he knew it very well, yet he had no choice but to wait, wait for _something_ to happen. Because it wasn’t his time to disappear yet, and he didn’t know how long it would take for himself to finally reach that day.

His eyes shot open, then quickly closed again due to the harsh sunlight rushing in from between the trees’ leaves. It took a few seconds for his body to regain feeling, and when it finally did, he finally felt the cold water hit him like a truck. He quickly got up and out of the creek he had laid in, scowling at his now soaked clothes. He didn’t remember ever getting into the creek, nor did he remember putting on the clothes he was wearing.. he didn’t remember ever having a tail either. Better yet; he didn’t remember anything, he couldn’t recall a single thing aside from-

“Tooru..?”

The brunette didn’t know how fast he turned around when he heard the lightly cracking, yet oh-so familiar voice call out to him. The blonde didn’t know if he was imagining things or not. Neither of them knew who basically jumped the other and enveloped him in a hug.

There was one thing, however, that they both knew;

Akinori had gotten his second chance, and that second chance would last very long, because with two forest spirits in one forest, everything would stay alive for a while longer.

**Author's Note:**

> I did not check the spelling in this so if there's typos just point 'em out n laugh at me asldk
> 
> I spent 6 days on this and it better not flop


End file.
